How long should I take to process stuff?

12-24-2009, 11:24 AM

Is there a rule of thumb for how long we should take to process stuff? Sometime, I think I spend to much time just to figure what that stuff is, if action is needed, what successfull outcome and next action is.

I found that if I put "brainstorm X" on the list it never got done. I had to allocate enough time to really truly process my items when I did them. For some of them it takes me 15 plus minutes to even decide on the next actions. Putting it off does not work for me at all. I do better leaving stuff in the inbox if I run out of processing time. I have to be sure that I am fully processing what I do take out. As I am getting more practice I can make the next action decisions faster but it still takes a long time for some things.

I've had things that took a good half an hour to even decide whether it was actionable by me. The whole section on determining the successful outcome part can take a long time too for some inbox things.

I'm finding now that I spend on average an hour or more a day processing the inputs I create and at least once a week I have to take another hour to do the things that got stuck in the inbox because I wasn't sure whether I had to do anything or not.

Comment

For example, I have a budgeting problem that I don't have the faintest idea how to solve. But I will need to have a particular email to solve it. And I'll need to be able to find that email when I work on the problem.

So my next action is - seriously - "Create a folder for X budget problem on laptop". And the one after that will be "Find Y's email and put in X budget problem folder." I'll probably still be lost, and the next one will be "Re-read Y's email." After a few more ittybitty next actions like this, I will probably eventually hit on something that makes greater than microscopic progress on the problem.